Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1887-12-23
CHAPTER VI.
THE HOUSE AT MrRRAYFGELD.

CHAPTER VI.
THE HOUSE AT MCRRAYFIELD.
How John passed the evening, in what
windy confusion of mind, in what squalls of
anger and lulls of sick collapse in what
pacing of streets and punging into public
houses, it would profit little to relate His
misery, if it were not progressive yet tended
i'll no way to diminish; for in proportion as
grief and Indignation abated, fear began to
take their place. At first his fathers men
acing words lay by in some safe drawer of
memory, biding their hour. At first John
was all thwarted affection and blighted hope;
next bludgeoned vanity raised its head again,
with twenty mortal gasheS; and the father
was disowned even as he had disovned the
son What was this regular course of life
that John should have admired it, What
were these clockwork virtues from which
love was absent! Kindness was the test,
kindness the aim and soul; and judged by
such a standard, the discarded prodigal-
now rapidly drowning his sorrows and his
reason in successive dlams-was a creature
of lovelier morality than his self righteous
father Yes, he was the better man he felt
it, glowed with the consciousness. and
entering a public house at the corner of
Howard place whittier he had somehow
wandered he pledged his own virtues in n
glass-perhaps the fourth since his dismissal
OF that he knew nothing, keeping no account
of what lie did or where he went and i'll the
general crashing hurry of his nerves. uncon-
Scious of the approach Of intoXication. In
deed, it is a question whether he were really
growing intoxicated, or whether at first the
spirits did not even sober him For it was
even as he drained this last glass that his
fathers Ambiguous and menacing words
popping from their hiding place in memory
startled him like Il hand laid upon his shou-
der Grimes, hunted, the gaIloWs" They
We're uGl y words; i'll the ears of an innocent
man, perhaps all the uglier; for if some judi
rial error were in act against him, who should
set "A limit to its grossness or to how far it
might be pushed; Not John, indeed; he was
no believer in the powers of innocence, his
cursed experience pointing in quite other
ways; and his fears, once Weakened, grew
with every hour and hunted him about the
city streets.
1t was perhaps nearly . at night. he had
eaten nothing since lunch, he had drank "A
good deal and he was exhausted by emotion,
when the thought OF Houston came INTO his
head. lie turned not merely to the man as n
friend but to his house rs place Of refuge
The danger that threatened him was still
50 ya.,ila that hn l,uov, noith,,, ,,Lo4 70 Fam.
non. where "a MIGHT axnoct il l,t +ti, ,,,,,,I,
o+ Ioaet seemed ,r,loi,i,il', - i,,a.
hons, ',,,os for thor, ,,rI, ',r',',i
bv thesa counsels he trrn,'. .. ..tn ,l,n
Caledonia station, passed mot without
redeemed his ,o,tlnnntean fron, +ha oia,i,
room and was soon whiring in cab
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